The Radiant team were making an obvious push to take down our Tier 2 on top. Playing as Warlock, I had already gotten quite a bit of success with my ultimate Chaotic Offering which was now at Level 3 – and with both Aghanim’s Sceptre and Refresher Orb thanks to the accumulate gold I’d earned!

With my freshly purchased Shadow Amulet (activate to become invisible as long as you don’t move or act), I moved to a little bit below the tower and went invisible to await the coming assault.

When the enemy team arrived, my allies initiated the clash. Then I quickly broke invisibility and moved in with Fatal Bonds (20% of all damage taken by a chained enemy is also dumped onto every other chained enemy), followed by a Chaotic Offering dropping two Golems onto the enemies’ heads for instant damage, Immolation area damage and Golem attack damage… Resulting in an immediate two kills.

With the remaining enemies stunned from the Golem drop, I followed up right away with Refresher Orb to reset my cooldowns and Chaotic Offering again dropping another two Golems, for another two kills. ULTRA KILL!!! A bountiful harvest all in the space of maybe 5 seconds, to my own surprise!

If the enemy Lifestealer hadn’t been at the bottom lane farming, it would probably have been a 5-enemies killed RAMPAGE.

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Nature’s Randomness

Playing as Nature’s Prophet. Our team had been doing well from the start, but towards the end of the game the enemy team was outpacing us… Mostly due to Phantom Lancer who was all itemed up and hard to kill due to his multiple illusions clogging up the field. And also quite due to our Night Stalker who chided us not to feed, then promptly got himself killed mutiple times. Including once with an Aegis of the Immortal, promptly wasting it (which I warned that he would surely do!).

Anyway, I was defending against a hero-less creep wave and tossed out my ultimate Nature’s Wrath (damage jumps to many visible enemies across the map)… And to our surprise, the dominating Phantom Lancer was killed by it! Cussing from said player ensued.

Sheer luck, and so totally sweet!

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Sniper Gear

Playing Single Draft which is my current preference because:

1) I don’t always see Sniper, Riki, Spirit Breaker every single game.
2) Equalizer of sorts because the better, but narrowly skilled, players don’t always get to use the heroes they are good at.
3) If I lose, I can blame the bad random allotment lol.

Anyway, I got Sniper as one of my choices. Woohoo! First time Sniper in Dota 2. Apart from a perfect 25-0 score where I mainly just walked up to an enemy and auto-attacked him to death (Orb of Venom helps), or they were still hanging around with less than 500 HP (whoops got Sniper Ulti’ed), two fun notes:

Shadow Amulet saved me from dying in a teamfight, no kidding. With two enemies left standing, I decided to activate it at around my 200HP remaining rather than run. By the time it turned me invis, I had less than 100HP left.

Poor Broodmother meanwhile got a nasty surprise by letting her guard down while in the ‘safety’ of her invisibility-granting webs. A simple purchase of Dust of Appearance and she was bugmeat. The second time she managed to run into the trees and escape. The third, she remained still while I chipped off her health – apparently unaware of, or confused by, the drop in HP when she was supposedly invisible.

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That’s Far

Instances of surprisingly super-long-range hits.

First as Gyrocopter, I launched a Heat Seeking Missile at Nature’s Prophet who was in the middle of teleporting. The missile took off and he disappeared… And the missile tracked him all the way across the map to finally impact. Which he noted with a lol.

Second as Weaver, I auto attacked Queen of Pain who ran back into base as my first swarm followed her. My Geminate Attack activated and released the second swarm when the first swarm hit, by which time Queen of Pain was well inside her base and still running. The second swarm finally hit waaaaay offscreen and killed her. Which my ally noted with a lol.

Third, my ally as Gyrocopter launched a Missile while the enemy ran… And ran… and Blink Daggered… And ran! All the way from almost in our Radiant base to just inside their Dire base. It finally hit, and Gyro who kept chasing almost hit the target to death too! 3/4 of the map at least.

Fourth, as Bloodseeker I was healing up in Dire fountain just as a teamfight was finishing at the Dire jungle top left. An enemy Vengeful Spirit managed to juke on low enough health that I could see her with my Thirst. Chasing after her all the way as she ran through the Radiant Secret Shop jungle, sped up by maxed Thirst and Power Treads and one early use of Mask of Madness, I finally caught up to her and hit her twice for a kill a few hundred Dotametres into Radiant base!

Fifth, did you know that now Bounty Hunter’s Shuriken bounces to any Tracked enemy within 900 radius? With two enemies Tracked in a teamfight, I was nearly dead and so started to scamper off… But I returned for a brief Shuriken onto a Tracked enemy followed by running away. The Shuriken killed him, then bounced to his Tracked running-away friend for another kill midway into the Dire jungle while I was almost to the Dire fountain.

And after patch 6.8.4, Shuriken can bounce to Tracked enemies up to 1200 range! That made for an extremely long range kill, with two enemies against myself and an ally around the mid river. Enemy 1 made a run for it down to their Radiant base, while Enemy 2 was just above the river. Low on HP, I tossed Shuriken and high-tailed it further up. The bounce locked on to Enemy 1 and starter its bounce, so by the time it landed and killed, my Bounty Hunter and the victim were more than 2000 range away!

Even further was when a Tracked enemy used Town Portal back to their fountain. Too far to directly Shuriken, I tried a bounce off a nearer enemy creep. The Shuriken locked on, but then the Tracked hero ported back to base… Leaving the Shuriken to fly up off into the fog of war, presumably to home in all the way from Radiant jungle bottom-right to Dire fountain!

Again, our gank turned into a teamfight when enemy reinforcements showed up. I chose to break off the chase as the Tracked target ran from the left river to the Radiant midlane… And tossed a Shuriken onto his nearer ally, which bounced down to pwn him!

Having tracked enemy Riki but unable to close in on him as he escaped, I Shurikened a nearby creep at slightly below the location of the (destroyed earlier) Tier 1 Radiant tower. It bounced up and right to Pudge who was at the mid river and tracked up to hit Riki around the top rune spot, just enough to kill him!

As Oracle, I started channeling Fortune’s End on the enemy target at the topleft Side Shop. She then TP’ed back to Dire fountain, and shortly afterward my channeling released the projectile. It homed in all the way across to the Dire base, finally landing on her as she was walking down past the Ancient.

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Zzzzz…

Playing as Bane, my team’s attempted gank went badly and we were getting pwned in the teamfight. Running for my worthless life, with two still-healthy enemies chasing, I cast Nightmare on myself as a last ditch attempt to stall for time in the hope that someone would save me.

Within 3 seconds the damage from Nightmare had pwned myself. Denied! Hahaha!

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How not to counter Bounty Hunter

From the start of the match it was clear that this would be lopsided, one way or another… My team was mostly melee carries (I as Bounty Hunter, Kunkka as my lane partner, etc) against Crsytal Maiden, Lina, Nature’s Prophet, Twin Head Dragon and Outworld Devourer. If we had a good start, our carries would overwhelm the enemy by the late game. If the enemy could start strong and keep up the pressure, they would win before the late game ever materialized.

So expecting early harass, my starting buys were Stout Shield and Ring of Regeneration. Me and Kunkka ran into a solo Crystal Maiden (solo!!! Crystal Maiden!!!). I tell you, the number of times she spammed Crystal Nova, that ring more than repaid its equivalence to the 1,400 HP that would have been healed by Healing Salves (one of Crystal Maiden’s own salves I interrupted halfway with a Shuriken Toss btw). I played safe instead of trying to rush a kill (which in my experience never seems to turn out well from early game all the way to affecting the end game).

Elsewhere, my allies were indeed getting their butts kicked to the point of declaring an early ‘gg’. I responded that as carries we could still win the game, and to be patient as I rushed a BKB. Meanwhile our towers fell in succession, especially to a constantly pushing Nature’s Prophet (whom I twice found hard to pin down without a proper stun to stop his Teleport).

Indeed, once I bought that magic bullet, I charged into an enemy push and basically slaughtered them. My first appearance in their midst (after Track + Shuriken Toss to farm an almost dead Twin Head Dragon who was far from the rest) was met by an immediate Dragon Slave and Light Strike Array from Lina, plus Crystal Nova from Crystal Maiden – which would very likely have pwned me except that I was magic immune! The kill count went from 13 – 24 in the enemy’s favour when I first activated the BKB, to a complete rout teamfight after teamfight. Track on each enemy before finishing them spilled plentiful gold which led to more items – including eventually THREE major anti-spell gear (Black King Bar, Planeswalker’s Cloak, Linken’s Sphere).

They weren’t fully dissuaded (or were aware that my ascendance meant they had to end the game quickly), and kept team pushing. Each time I would run into their midst with Wind Walk invisibility, wait for someone to stray ever so slightly from the group, then slaughter him or her.

Before each foray I’d click on each enemy to check for detection items. The closest they ever came was two charges of Dust of Appearance – two charges, throughout the entire match. No Sentry Wards which would have forced me to wasted a slot on detection items.

And the kicker? Two of them scrummed up the gold to complete Shadow Blades! Against Bounty Hunter’s Track! Crsytal Maiden even responded to one mid-game beatdown by standing still – what on earth? Then she started to fade… Shadow Amulet! Well played in other situations (see my Sniper Gear recollection above), but just so sad against Bounty Hunter.

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Random Rampage, killsteal block, and tradeoffs

As Morphling, I built into a carry – going for Butterfly first. With it completed, we all ended up in a teamfight where I just auto-attacked – not activating my Waveform or Adaptive Strike. Through sheer luck, I ended up last hitting all five enemy heroes – RAMPAGE!!! Although my high Agility translating to fast attack speed and high damage surely contributed.

My ally Sniper, on the other hand, was actively trying to killsteal every chance he got. He did end up with 3 kills higher than mine. At one point, an enemy Abaddon was trying to escape when Sniper’s Assassinate! icon appeared on him. I immediately used Waveform to catch up to Abaddon followed by Adaptive Strike which just managed to kill Abaddon an instant before Sniper’s ultimate launched.

Finally, this particular match had lots of tradeoffs where two opponents end up killing one another. In fact, at the very start all four of us on the bottom lane ended up dead, with the last two trading slow-moving projectile autoattacks!

Playing as Zeus, once I hit level 6 most of the game was basically running up to the enemy and zapping them to death in a few seconds. I tried not to kill steal, waiting if I saw that my team was handling their own gank okay before using zapping if the enemy was escping. 25 kills by the end of the game. Enemy Doom commended my good team, I replied tongue-in-cheek that if by that he meant they’re good at charging into team fights like meat shields so that everyone is distracted and hits them while I walk in and zap, then yes, I agree. He lol’ed.

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What An Ice Day

Playing as Tiny with Spirit Breaker on my lane. We were waiting patiently for level 6 (more powerful Toss and Nether Strike) so we have an edge in taking out our rivals on the lane. Suddenly our ally Ancient Apparition’s ultimate landed in their midst out of nowhere – no warning from him either! – and we grabbed the opportunity to rush in with Charge of Darkness and Rock Slide + Toss. Two kills, lovely!

Years later, playing as Ancient Apparition, my Aether Lens boosted Ice Vortex with ridiculous 1500+200 range and low cooldown was put to good use revealing small patches of the fog of war, and especially cast ahead of where the enemy was trying to run – thus slowing him down enough for the rest of my team to get in range/cooldown refreshed for their spells.

And near the end of the game, Invoker and me ran across the enemy Ember Spirit’s remnant sitting at Dire secret shop. So we decided to hang around while Ember rat-pushed the top lane, pinging for our allies to join in the fun. Sure enough, Ember popped back shortly and met an unpleasant surprise pwning!

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Abaddon You Just Love Being Unkillable?

Playing as Abaddon, after a successful gank of the opposing heroes on the Dire suicide lane (i.e. right side), both me and laning partner Earthshaker were at the Side Shop when suddenly the enemy Bounty Hunter broke invisibility and stabbed us to death.

After this ignominy, I bought Sentry Wards and plopped one down near the exit of the river on the lane. This paid dividends when the Bounty Hunter later tried to stealth pwn us again – this time we easily pounded his invisible, unsuspecting head. Later in the game the same thing happened again wtih a newly placed Sentry Ward replacing the previous one.

But the interesting thing came almost at the end. Assaulting the enemy Radiant base’s bottom entrance, our team’s Rhasta accidentally trapped me with his ultimate snake wards! By this time I was known to hard to kill due to Aphotic Shield and especially Borrowed Time’s damage-taken-becomes-health, plus the wards meant that the enemy was deterred from trying to gank me just yet.

So I just sat there “…” until the wards finally expired. This was followed by me running up, the enemy coming for my head, and my somehow surviving with 100HP or so – thanks to the entire enemy team whacking on me through my Borrowed Time while the fed Troll Warlord whacked on them, each in turn, for a RAMPAGE.

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Avengers Assemble! (For a Gank!)

Playing as Clockwerk, our team was ganking and solo-killing the other guys like nobody’s business (including my getting flamed by a teammate “noob clock only know ks” (kill-steal)… probably due to my Battery Assault chasing or across-the-map Rocket Flare killing some almost dead runners).

Our Undying’s habit of trading blows until near death, then ‘hulking out’ into his Ultimate form made me call out HULK and HULK SMASH more than once.

So at the end of the game, with our team ganking the enemy heroes right to the doorstep of their Radiant fountain, I noted “hulk, thor and loki!” and “hawkeyess” (hawkeye-ess, female form of hawkeye lol) and of course “iron man” – referring to Undying, Sven (for his Storm Hammer), Huskar (yes, someone asked where’s Loki and I pointed out the spear), Mirana (4 out of 5 ain’t bad) and my Clockwerk.

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Roshan Mega Kill

A teammate carry with me as Necrophos minor backup took on Roshan. The enemy Sniper seemed to have a hint what was up (probably not my Heartstopper Aura as the 1000 radius wouldn’t reach far enough up from my position down from Roshan) and rained Shrapnel on the area, twice, which we pointedly ignored. Roshan was getting real close to death when both the enemy team backup and our own backup arrived.

Somehow in the ensuing slugfest, Roshan managed to kill TWO of our enemy! One was Queen of Pain who most likely had Blinked into his lair to use her AoE spells, and the other I forget.

And the kicker? At the end of the sparring, with several dead on each side… Roshan was still alive, with a bit of HP left, waiting for us to finish the job and take the Aegis!

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Four, Back for More

In a game where I was Batrider, we were dominating the enemy team. How much you ask? I was taking down the second bottom tower of Dire while the rest of my team were breaking the middle rax. I got ganked and died, and immediately bought back into the game. Three of my team then died too… And bought back immediately too!

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Drow Stories

Playing as Drow, looking at the enemy team’s lineup of much castings (Phoenix, Disruptor, Queen of Pain… Plus Chaos Knight and Lone Druid) I bought Ring of Regeneration as my starting gear. Middle lane went up againt Phoenix who kept up long range harass with Icarus Dive and Sun Ray, which my Ring somewhat negated. So I got another Ring and a Cloak.

This turned out helpful as I completed them into a Planeswalker’s Cloak… The 30% spell damage reduction and 8HP/sec regen saved my skin in several ganked-so-run-for-it situations, such as one case where I escaped with as low as 26HP left with Disruptor’s Thunder Strike popping off on my head as I ran for it!

Later game, Phoenix several times tried to Supernova – but died in most cases to Drow’s high attack speed (thank you fat bonus Agil from ulti lol).

And poor, fragile Disruptor… By end game, my Cystalys then Daedalus crit together with massive damage output made him die in two hits, twice!

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Terrorblade Ulti Lolwut

Must have been a newbie to Dire’s Terrorblade, because when my Dark Seer was low on HP (due to using Ring of Sacrifice several times to spam Ion Shell), he came fresh from healing to full at the fountain, down past his bottom tower, and immediately Sundered me… Giving me almost full health and cutting his down sharply!

Not long later, I repaid that by running up and pwning him.

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The One That Didn’t Quite Get Away

Pwning as Bounty Hunter (from being the one to get the First Blood in a starting skirmish in the left Rune spot that I was late to attend to, to more than one intentional killsteals during a gank with a Shuriken Toss), late in the game we had pushed Radiant far back into their base and were basically ending the game.

I was chopping up one of the enemy heroes when another one distracted me. I went after this second guy, failing to notice that I hadn’t completed my killing of the first guy! Second guy died and then I noticed first guy healing just inside the radius of his fountain area (thanks to Track).

Armed with Butterfly, Desolator and Monkey King Bar, I walked up to him at the fountain area and finished the job with one Jinada’d up blow of more than 800 damage.

Lesson to learn: Heal further inside the fountain area.

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Techies Trolling

Played All Pick for a change several times in a row, just to re-experience the unique joy that is Techies!

Such as rushing to the river to plop down mines at the start and snag the first Bounty runes (over the course of the early game, they help to offset the exp and gold loss from constantly roaming to plant mines) and provide just enough vision to act as rune sighters.

And getting kills out of the blue when enemies traverse the river on the way to a gank, or trying to snag a juicy rune… Which happens to have 4+ mines underneath!

And especially pwning enemies who visit the Secret Shop which has plenty of mines lying in wait, thus losing a chunk of the gold they just accumulated enough of to go shopping for that big item! Once, all my hard-placed mines went off when a courier stepped on them on the way to the Secret Shop… Now I place a spare mine at the entrance lanes to preemptively kill couriers.

And taking a break from mining to run up behind hurt enemies on the other lanes and interfere with a suicide explosion pwnage! Especially when I snag an Invisibility rune (perk of having mine to spot runes), which lets me walk right up to the unsuspecting enemies, lay a dumb mine and then Suicide on them!

On a good day, this gets me to 3rd or even 2nd place in total kills! Not bad for a ‘defensive’ hero.

One time, Pudge grabbed me with his Meat Hook and proceeded to perform the run-of-the-mill Rot + Dismember. His mistake to use Rot, as his base HP was more than the damage of my maxed out Suicide Squad Attack… Until his few seconds of Rot put his HP within nuke range!

That same Pudge also stepped on a fat load of mines at their Dire Secret Shop… Which left him at around 60HP! Luckily our Bounty Hunter quickly ran over and tossed a Shuriken just as Pudge started running away and healing.

Not so lucky all the time… Medusa with her puny below-1000HP but tons of mana for Mana Shield got ganked and Suicide bombed but managed to escape with around 120HP! Despite Zeus zapping her with an ulti to boot. In that same game, someone else (probably Vengeful Spirit) ganked me, to which I responded with an emergency Suicide. She was still alive after, so I typed “ulti!” until Zeus pwned her with his ultimate.

Or one amusing game where I suicide bombed a grand total of 8 times in response to being attacked, and each of those times resulted in kills! The first left Riki at low health so that my Sniper ally got the last hit. The next 5 caused outright kills with the explosion. The last 2 both happened at the middle of the map. First time a 2v2 scrap ended with me suiciding, but the weakened enemy stepped close enough to my single Remote Mine for me to get the kill. Second time again my suicide failed to deal enough damage, but a clutch of Remote Mines finished the job shortly after. After one of these Remote kills, the opponent called me cyka. To which I responded, “In Goblintown cyka rapes you!”

In that same game above, I was surprised when my usual Secret Shop dumb mines at Radiant got TWO kills! Watching the reply, it was Batrider with Slark following close behind coming from the left lane… Close enough together to both be taken out by the exploding mines. Drawback of sticking close to your allies – bonus kills for Techies! The game ended with me 17 kills, behind Sniper with 20.

Or one game where after mining the Secret Shop at Radiant, I went down to Remote Mine the midlane. A while later, a teamfight ended with me dead. However with my attention relieved off my hero for the moment, I could focus on my Remote Mines zone and pwned 3 of the fools who had just killed me seconds ago! Legion Commander who had already been cussing at the non-Dota suitability of Techies threatened to report me. I said go ahead, and state EXACTLY what I did wrong – i.e. pwned them by playing Techies the way they were designed! She called me a sh*t, I responded by pointing out their inability to buy wards (for detecting my mines – so far only happened in one game to my Remotes), so who is the poop here?

Sometimes, especially when they’re too eager to gank me, I can get 2 kills with a Suicide.

Or a match (that we lost eventually) where poor Windrunner kept stumbling into my minefields. For example I set up Proximity Mines at Roshan for the soloing Ursa. Windrunner for some inexplicable reason went there alone and triggered them. Or I set up Remote Mines in front of our Radiant tower. Windrunner was the first to come along.

Another match had me taking part in a few teamfights. When they broke out, I was near enough that I took a breather from laying mines to skitter over and contribute whatever I could (Proximities and Stasis). Two of these ended up with a hurt enemy running for it… And by sheer bad luck, over a single Proximity I had placed earlier and dying! One more had Storm Spirit use his ultimate to fly off, which didn’t trigger the mine however.

In the same match as the above, Pudge (all too common a sight in All Pick) caught me 3 or 4 times, which I responded to by Suiciding. Of these, most of them caused him to have low enough HP that an observant ally could easily pick him off.

And a different match (I think) had Razor running from a gank, using the bottom lane to escape back to Dire base… And over a few Remotes I had left a long time ago. I noticed him coming just in time and caught his low HP with the edge of the blasts!

One notable occassion had the enemy Dire engage in a teamfight downright of the middle-middle Radiant tower. After a short skirmish they broke it off and started running up past the tower… Right into my minefield which I detonated for 4 kills!

Techies can reap major killage, but without a good team to take advantage of the minor disruptions (single kills to Proximity Mines or Suicides) and major events (multiple kills by Remote Mines) and push, it will probably end in the enemy team winning with a few mass teamfights.

With the new Aether Lens increasing spell casting ranges by 200, plus Aghanim’s range increase on Remote Mines, Techies can take a more active role in teamfights and ganks. That ultimate can be tossed and the explosion reach quite far!

On bottom lane, I was accosted by Legion Commander who proceeded to run up to me and Duel… And then triggered my Stasis Trap which I had placed earlier. So she stood there unmoving while I lobbed my weak, slow autoattacks for a few seconds until the Stasis and Duel wore off and I scampered away. Lol, she probably got 1 or 2 attacks in total.

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That’s A Lotta…

Using Legion Commander, I was ganking a lot – enough that by the end of the game I had 26 kills, with +238 bonus damage from kills during my ultimate.

Using Invoker, my preferred build is Quas + Exort for Forge Spirits and Cold Snap – it avoids the micro of constantly swapping skills (Ice Wall could be used I suppose, and I do occassionally activate Sun Strike if I think I can score a far-off kill) and most people don’t expect Invoker played as an autoattacker. But 3 instances of Exort together with 2 Forge Spirits melting their armor and Cold Snap stunning can pwn enemies in a few seconds! By the end of one game at above Level 20 with Exort maxed, Daedalus and Eye of Skadi, I was doing a total of 295 damage per hit (before crits)!

Playing as Huskar, we were actually getting seriously pwned by ganks led by an ever-increasingly fed Axe who was taunting and Culling all over the place. Oddly though, midgame they suddenly went their own separate ways – Axe didn’t even show up. Maybe he was AFK? (I was myself for a few minutes, attending to something urgent.) Well that reprieve actually allowed us to farm and even win a few gankfights, and we snowballed from there that by the time Axe was back in the teamfighting, we could take them and win it! My Huskar with Shadow Edge (key item for jumping in with Life Break, burning spearing someone to death, then escaping alive), Heaven’s Halberd, Armlet of Mordiggan, and TWO Hearts of Tarrasque (even one is enough to completely negate the lifeloss from Mordiggan and Burning Spears!) pumped my HP to 4554!

Playing as Pudge – for the first time since WC3 Dota, which must be more than a few years – some basic memory and seeing some current Dota2 Pudge players got me to 27 kills and 33 instances of Flesh Heap, plus Heart of Tarrasque (one is enough to offset perma-Rot) and and Aghanim and Reaver, pushed my HP to 6559!

Getting pushed into our base by the enemy, one of my allies finally killed a Dominating enemy and broke his Killstreak for an amazing 2077 gold reward! A week or so later, this was surpassed by a 2464 gold bounty when my ally killed the enemy Juggernaut in an even more we-are-totally-curbstomped match!

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Clockwerk Run and Return

Outclassed by harder enemy carries like Broodmother (with her insane Lifesteal ultimate), my Clockwerk took part in a 2v2 at the jungle ramp near the right Rune spot. A bit of sparring later, I was low on HP and plopped down a Gears, hit one open and then hoofed it into the nearby jungle.

Just then two of my allies showed up to the left of where I dropped the Gears and started a second round of sparring. Seeing them on the case and the enemies dropping in HP, without checking where my hero was in relation, I fired a Hookshot toward one enemy and it landed! Pull, pop explosions, kill. Lol!

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Nemesis (pum da da duuum!)

As Troll Warlord, I was on mid against an enemy Bloodseeker. By coincidence we both went checking for Runes (yeah, unranked pub game no wards, go figure) at the same time and spot. It was a Double Damage and I juuuuust manage to grab it before he did! Yet he decided to stay and fight it out briefly before running, which was enough time for me to hit, chase and kill him in short order.

A while later, AGAIN by coincidence we met while Rune-hunting – and AGAIN I grabbed DD a short while before he came along! Another death.

And later still, going to the defense of our mid Radiant tower, Bloodseeker happened to come along and Rupture+Bloodbath on me in the jungle just right of the tower. Well since I couldn’t run away, I just activated my ulti and stood there trading blows with him. Sorry dude, few heroes – and especially not a several-times pwned-already Bloodseeker – can manfight a getting-fed Troll!

This was followed by various Blood gank deaths as my ever-fatter Troll engine of DPS stun kicked into gear and started killing everything else too. Poor dude.

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Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam~

Playing Beast Brawl, where whoever gets to pick first or fastest goes straight for Zeus. Why?

Here’s a typical example: My Lich picked for the mass teamfights that often accompany the Year Beast launches Chain Frost, followed by an immediate Veil of Discord. 25% damage-pumped iceball bounces around the assembled enemy heroes + beast + creeps. Then Zeus uses Wrath, Refresher Orb, Wrath, Year Beast’s Wrath for a clean KS sweep.

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Too much garnish, forgot the meat

Dire was acting all cocky from the start, with Axe and Antimage bottom lane stopping our creeps between the Tier 1 & 2 towers, blocking and killing them so that their own creeps had unfettered access to beat down our Tier 1 tower and my Shadow Shaman and allied Earthshaker had no safe escape back.

Later they brought 4 or 5 to teamfights at the topleft jungle, which made for hard fighting for us. Some good plays and dual disable from me helped us win some and stem the tide.

My allies meanwhile were moaning that our Phantom Assassin was off doing her own thing, come and help us fight! But then I made the realization, and told them to just let her farm.

True enough, when she finally started roaming, she had Battlefury and Helm of the Dominator and enough levels to be able to slaughter multiple enemies on her own. More than once her Coup de Grace procced on the first attack for a 1-hit-KO of over 2000 damage!

The enemy team had been so busy with their tactics, that they neglected the main strategy and let PA farm unopposed for way too long.

By that point the game was so obviously won that she went and bought a Divine Rapier, which she soon lost to… Chen on the enemy team, after dying and Aegis and dying again in the Dire base.

Divine Rapier Chen!

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Manfight surprise

So Bloodseeker managed to catch my Bounty Hunter with Rupture followed by Blood Rite. With my Shadow Walk on cooldown (15 seconds is way too long IMHO), I decided to manfight him and maybe give my allies a chance to finish the job. My Vladimir’s would help me last as Bloodseeker wailed on me.

Surprise, suddenly my hit cut a huge chunk off his health and he died several seconds earlier than I estimated the fight should take, with my own HP bumped back up! Most likely my Jinada procced for a critical, and with help from his own Bloodrage damage amplification on himself and my Desolator, the total damage was enough to cut maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of his health in one blow! And his Bloodrage then restored my HP. Lol!

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Skywrath Success Through Failure

As Skywrath Mage, I completely misjudged a Mystic Flare ultimate and totally missed hitting the enemy. Which was fortunate, because he used Blade Mail just at that time.

And encroaching into the Radiant bottom left jungle area, Ember Spirit spotted me and came in with a quick Sleight of Fist + Searing Chains to lock me down. He killed me in a second or two, but I got off an Ancient Seal on him – which silenced him from using his ultimate to jump back to base for those loooong several seconds when our Huskar came Life Break-ing and Burning Spears-ing him to death.

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Sky-rager Mage

Our ally Skywrath Mage got really annoyed after our ally Outworld Devourer used Astral Imprisonment to banish an enemy from the battlefield – just in time to make Skywrath’s Mystic Flare miss its duration. It got to the point where Skywrath called for Outworld to be reported lol.

The immediately following game, me as Skywrath had a few Mystic Flares against the enemy partly miss when our ally Dark Seer vacuumed them out of the way. Dark Seer was pretty apologetic about it though (first time playing the hero apparently), and one of the last Mystic Flares of the match had the enemy run out from under it, then get vacuumed back into it! Which I and Dark Seer noted.

A good game had me paired with a Vengeful Spirit whose intuition gelled well with mine. We’d dive for a gank together without prior signaling, and apart from the first attempt where the enemy Ember Spirit escaped with maybe 1 hit left of HP, it went well. Venge even Nether Swapped an enemy out from under my Mystic Flare, but it was okay cos most of the Flare had already hit and the enemy had almost run out from under it anyway.

That same game, we had raxxed their midlane all the way to their Ancient. Ember Spirit tried to rat push with his TP boots to the creepwave and Remnant back. Finally after a few of these, I waited in base and when he came, chased him off with a silence+slow, followed by 3 (Aghanim enabled) Mystic Flares. The first landed on his head, the second was cast cast onto high ground but still fired off and grazed him as he ran by despite losing vision for a brief moment, and the third dropped ahead of his running direction with Aether Lens’ cast range boost finished him before the silence expired and he could Remnant away. 2605 mana well spent (not a typo)!

Also, at the same game’s endgame, the enemy Outworld Devourer used Sanity’s Eclipse which caught me and emptied my mana, but not my HP. I told him sorry, I have high Int too (Level 20 Int without item modifiers is 99 for Skywrath, only 80 for Outworld).

Allied Rubick lifted an enemy with Telekinesis and I took the chance to rain my ult on the target… And then Rubick landed him outside of the AoE. And later a bit, I slowed and ulted the enemy… And Rubick used a stolen Pudge Hook to pull him out. Both times the enemy still died tho, and the rest of Rubick’s stolen hooks were better than the actual Pudge’s – such as getting the last hit on an enemy who was running after my combo took off most of his health.

An allied Winter Wyvern’s ult basically nullifies Skywrath’s… As I found out a few times when my rain of magic was interrupted by Winter’s Curse, causing the enemy under it to not take any damage -_- Was easy to gank enemy Storm Spirit several times with my Silence though.

Playing with an allied Magnus, twice I let loose my ult… only for him to blink and charge the enemy out of the way.

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Spirit Breaker Run Stun Fun

Playing SB to complete Winter Battle Pass 2016 ‘Staymaker’ quest (disable enemies for cumulative 90 seconds in one game – unfortunately they mean Hard Disable, so only hex/stun/etc work and not silence/slow/etc).

Enemy Earthshaker started the match with the old Fissure to block the starting Bounty Rune trick. Sadly for him, I Charge of Darknessed over it to stun him and grab the rune lol!

Then mid game, I had to cast Nether Strike 4 times in quick succession! The first cast got stunned during casting, the next attempt was on a low HP enemy who died before the cast completed, the third was also canceled when the low HP target died, and finally the fourth finished casting and pwned the third low HP enemy!

For quest I needed to reveal 8 out of 10 more invisible enemies to be killed within 30 seconds, so I was watching to see what the enemy team picked. Clinkz came out early, so I prepared to lock in Spirit Breaker. Then Bounty Hunter came out too, so it was a no brainer – I locked in Spirit Breaker immediately so no one else would pick it before me!

Charging at enemies busy in other lanes, wandering on their lonesome or into teamfights, I bought and used probably 8-10 Dusts of Appearance as I kept smashing Clinkz or BH. Charge when I see a target, continue tracking with shared vision over them even if they turned invisible, smash into them and start hitting, wait until they actually go invisible (if they weren’t already) before I dust so that the quest counts it, then whack or Nether Strike for the kill.

I easily got all the reveal kills I needed, although several times it seemed I dusted an invisible enemy and then killed him within a second or so after but the quest counter didn’t register it as a fulfilment. Hmph.

The constant kills meant that my first-item Urn of Shadows kept getting top-ups and uses – only the first kill was before Urn purchased. So much so that I would use it at the start of the gank to get the enemy to die faster a bit. I ended the game with 18/4/14 KDA so I probably added 30+ charges to it, not counting the times I died early in the fight.

At the end I commended the two ninjas as ‘Forgiving’… In one sense for being gracious about my endless harassment, and in another ‘For Giving’ me my quest kills!

Next I was trying to ‘3 kill assists by 10 minutes’, I was having zero luck until around minutes 8+. Rotating from bottom to top dire tower, I charged and chased all the way to their tower and got assists on the 2 enemies. Then a third who had come rotating in from mid to try and save his buddies!

Sadly, we lost that game so the quest failed. Charging from top dire lane to bottom to join a teamfight, I never showed up… Instead I was fighting Roshan solo! Most probably, my Charge crossed him and he hit me with an unlucky bash stun on his first blow!

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Audio Confusion

I started a match, I and started to get confused from the hero picking stage onwards. Why is Techies announcing, I thought I last had the Bastion announcer equipped? When did I even get Techies? And when the game started proper, why is the original Dota music playing? What happened to my deadmau5 dieback?

Shortly I realized what was up… I clicked the ‘Players Are Sharing’ button and saw that someone was sharing their Techies announcer. Coupled with the allied Crystal Maiden trying to talk over his microphone – with the mic active symbol constantly on – I realized that his mic was channeling all his speakers sounds, so loud that my own voice and music packs were being swamped!

A quick mute later, and my preferred audio was back on track.

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Mirana Cruise Missile Stun Fun

Attempting the abovementioned ‘3 kill assists by 10 minutes’ quest that I failed as Spirit Breaker, I picked Mirana. Going to bottom rune with Huskar and Clinkz, I warned them of my plan. Staying on our Radiant jungle high ground to get enough range, my allies’ vision spotted enemy Death Prophet waiting across the river. Since she seemed content to just sit there and wait for the rune to spawn, I launched my Sacred Arrow and hit her dreaming face for a 5 second stun!

My allies must’ve been kinda dreaming too, cos they ony started running to her once she was stunned. The three of us pinged her down until she finally died trying to run to her mid tower.

From there, I rotated out of mid to grab the next rune spawn, looped around up behind dire tier 1 tower, and arrowed another hero as they hugged the ‘safety’ of their tower. Wash, rinse, repeat every few minutes until the 4th kill (kill no.3 was not an assist, as the enemy died to my arrow on hit lol).

Also, sometimes I’d send a blind arrow… Once while coming late to a teamfight at top dire jungle, I fired my blind arrow ahead of where I thought the enemy would run towards the right (back to their base). It cruised past a TP-ing Phantom Assassin who would have been hit if I’d aimed a bit to the left. But the arrow continued on up into the topmost trees, and landed square on poor Death Prophet who was similarly trying to TP away!

Another time I was aiming for the First Blood or Assist quest. This time as Dire, I went to the bottom rune and plopped a ward for vision first. An enemy Phantom Assassin came and waited, so I launched my arrow. She shifted a little, but went back to the same spot and got stunned.

Meanwhile, me and allied Chaos Knight and Lion came running in. Guaranteed kill right? Unfortunately, CK stunned immediately instead of waiting for my stun to wear off (late I mentioned it and CK admitted as much over his mic). PA had just enough HP to run away as I chased with a few attacks, and managed to avoid my follow up arrow.

So I went bottom to lane, CK asked me to swap mid with Lion so he wouldn’t have to compete with me for farm. But before I did, I hid in the trees left of the lane and managed to get my 3rd (and last by way of mana left) arrow to stun onto an enemy. This time CK was prepared and hit a few times before using his own stun, and we finally got First Blood. CK said good job over his mic… But that I should still go mid.

So I did, and told Lion to swap, and he asked why, and I said cos CK asked, and Listen to Carry. It was a good swap, as he was up against Pudge mid who would probably easily eat him whereas I could Leap away (and did once). It was skillshot vs skillshot, his Hook and my Sacred Arrow both with long range but blocked by creeps, and later both of us were roaming.

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Trolltastic Priest Bros

As Witch Doctor, I started the fight by Casking 2 enemies at the bottom rune spawn just at 1 second to go, managing to grab the rune and run. My ally Dazzle was late to come so couldn’t save me from dying, oh well. Somehow we ended up on the Radiant safelane together instead of one of us babysitting our Spectre.

Our opponent was a solo Bristleback (Legion Commander was jungling the whole early game it would later turn out, when at Lvl 9 I unfortunately ran into her), and we harassed the heck out of him, getting a revenge kill eventually. Later my Death Ward killed him again, but the massive number of hits caused his bristle sprays to kill us both too!

Anyway, in the later half of the game, our teamfight synergy of Spectre/Lion/Mirana/Dazzle/Witch Doctor was ripping their Puck/Vengeful/Bristle/Legion/Juggernaut apart, with much credit to allies cooperating for smoke roams, skilful timing of Mirana’s ulti to gank or Rosh (Spectre got a DD rune just before we went in lol) and especially Dazzle’s Shallow Grave.

The most clutch Grave was as we were retreating from Dire secret shop area. I had made it to the rune area when LC jumped me with Duel. Just before I died, Dazzle appeared from the left and Graved me, while the rest of my team stunned. This caused my already-on Voodoo Restoration to get me to 300+ health by the time Duel expired, and I ran a bit before turning for a Cask+Maledict+DeathWard combo. With Agha making my Ward bounce, I dealt massive damage in the 2+ seconds before they finished me off and my allies mopped it up afterward. If I have bought Shadow Blade instead I might have lived…

Later a bit more, Spectre got a DD rune just as I suggested Rosh again. He and another ally started first, while I toddled over with Obs+Sentry on the highground above the rune area… Just in case. And after helping hit and heal awhile, the enemy Venge cast Wave of Terror to check the pit, so I retreated to Radiant highground to be ready for any enemy attempts. All that paid off as Roshan died, because I saw LC and a smoked-up enemy team coming down towards us! Cask on LC into my combo, allies joined in, and that was some clutch warding!

It was easy to push too, with dual mass healing Dazzle (7.6k that game) + WD (6.4k only, cos I maxed Maledict after one point in Restoration). Thanks to DotaBuff.com for the excellent statistical reviews.

Oh and btw, after my first game as WD after slotting in tracking gems:

THAT is what position 5 support is about!

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Bye Baby Courier

Doing the (rather annoying) courier sniping quest. Using BH or Clinkz for the invis, putting a starting ward at the enemy offlane (or even their midlane too) behind their tier 2 tower, and hoping for a courier summon just doesn’t work well in pubs… I could go the whole laning phase with no courier summoned to the correct lane!

So I switched to Nature’s Prophet… Start with a ward, smoke and TP scroll. After the starting rune fight, back off, smoke and port to the enemy base. Under the minimap-hiding safety of smoke, plant a ward outside their fountain and port back to lane. That lets me see which lane the courier is headed, and port there to intercept for 200 bonus gold to all allies! Courier respawns in 2 mins (with a helpful announcement by the game), probably immediately summoned again, and I average 2 courier kills a game. (Winning the game is of course another matter… Come on, allies, pull your weight! Free gold!)

One game, my own ally OD spoiled my attempt PERFECTLY by pausing to wait for a DC ally, JUST as I appeared in enemy base… Giving them plenty of time to notice my appearance on the minimap and not send the courier out until Zeus came back to deward it. Thanks, OD! My re-ward and further attempts failed to snipe any couriers. (Although we did win that game) From then on, I always smoke before porting in.

Another time, I pulled off a perfect snipe at Dire top lane, and shortly after the courier respawned and was summoned top again, I repeated the snipe! Enemy Naix all chatted WTF to that! Ward+Smoke+TP = 200 gold… Enemy going WTF = priceless

However I got what I deserved when the courier respawned and was summoned top, un-upgraded, for the third time. I waited a bit as usual then ported to the usual spot… And courier seemed late. Then I noticed (with my ward vision in their base) that it was just sitting in base, having been stopped shortly after moving left. And along came enemy SB from left and Naix from down-right to take ‘revenge for cou’ in Naix’s words! Lol. Naix was a whiner, complained a lot later as his team died and asked us report 2 of his allies.

We won that game on the back of a fed and snowballing mid PA and jungling LC, despite our offlane ES and Huskar dying a few times in laning. I like to think my two bonus gold snipes and delaying the enemy items for 4+ minutes (and making them walk back to base to shop, which my ward saw at least SB do) played a part in that. We started steamrolling so hard to the enemy tier 2 towers, that I switched from building Dag to Necrobook in order to push end faster (already bought the Rod of Intelligence and Null Talisman, the former is part of Nec and the latter is useful anyway).

Yet another time, the courier was summoned to mid so early that my first Teleport was still on cooldown for 20 seconds. I did get the next summoning, again to mid, but Axe took angry revenge as I ran off. Lesson learned, safer to tp out, 75g < death cost!

That said, I find that insta-picking NP, then showing up for the starting rune fight with a ward, smoke and 1 or 2 TPs seems to make the opposing team wary… More than once they responded by dewarding soon after my move, or refusing to use the courier and dewarding later. Not to mention sometimes a late-to-start player will just leaving the fountain and spot me out! To get my last courier kill for the quest, I purposely waited for awhile and a few hero selections before choosing NP, then sat in base until after the rune fight and all 5 of the enemy had more or less left their base, before making my move. Even then they somehow refused to use the courier at all until long after the Flying upgrade was available, but thankfully (SO THANKFULLY after a long streak of failed attempt games) they didn't upgrade it yet when they sent it out at the tail end of my ward's lifespan!

Another time with friends, it took a while for the courier to be summoned out the first time. I ported and killed it with no opposition. But the second time, long after it respawned and Flying Courier was available for upgrade, it came out again. Unfortunately I was so low health from skirmishing and had bad luck, I ported right into a gang of creeps and got off 1 hit before they killed me – courier escaped!

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The Jungle Block

As Mirana (Shere Khan for matching the title), my arrow roaming wasn’t doing so great – additionally because my team was not much of gankers, more farmers (Alch and NP). So when I saw enemy LC pop out to snag a rune then disappear back into the jungle twice, I decided to spend my low cash reserves on wards (without even brown boots yet). Starting with the large camps, and eventually at some points blocking ALL their camps! And if I could, I would farm the camp first with Starfall so that I get back some gold and the enemy junglers get even less farm!

The effect could gradually be seen, as LC started roaming with Iron Talon and Blink Dagger, but fell off and failed most of her Duels. Enemy Naix was spotted waiting at a camp for a spawn that never appeared, I can imagine little question marks appearing over his head lol! And they never dewarded even once, maybe LC assumed that Naix was taking all her camps or vice versa.

I must have spent >1000 gold on sentries alone. This strategy turned out to be correct, as my own team would break off every now and then to farm our own jungle. Over time, this meant my team outfarmed the starved enemy. I actually ended the game with a few hundred more net worth than LC! My arrowing LC n the middle of her Dueling an ally a few times probably helped.

An odd occurence at the start of this game too… Allied NP immediately ported to the ward-marked cliff near the ancients of the ENEMY Radiant side. This could probably work, as none of the enemy were ranged. But shortly after the starting bell, he got First Blood with allies charging in – will have to watch the replay to see how. (This is also why my arrow stun at bottom rune, chase and stun again failed to get a kill by a bit.)

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Wombo Combo Vine Slam

As Treant support position 5, most of my gold went to wards and smokes (quite successful, with one double kill in mid) so I had only Soul Ring and Arcane Boots most of the game. Perhaps inspired by our smoke ganks, the enemy smoked up – but in mid lane, right next to my Observer Ward, while I was looking. Still had to X ping Jugg tons of times to get him to leave jungle and stay in base.

Finally got my aghs and eyeballed the trees around the outside of our base first. Not long after, the enemy came knocking. We answered with my ult locking them down, allied Earthshaker Echo Slam, and whacking from Templar & Jugg & Meepo (who wasn’t bad, despite having randomed and then asking who wanted swap). This let us push mid and break the Tier 3 tower.

Unfortunately, bad positioning by over-extended Jugg trying to break the Dire top Tier 3 got most of us killed. Not a total loss, as the enemy being busy top let their mid rax be destroyed by our creep wave. This would come into play at the end.

I added eyeballs to the trees near our mid rax, and while adding to the jungle area near mid lane I got ganked. I buybacked to be ready to ulti, and waited patiently as the enemy stood around outside the base (eyeballed by trees) and then their carries cautiously hit the rax (also eyeballed by nearby trees). Maybe they weren’t familiar with Aghs Treant ulti?

Finally, enemy Ursa got trapped by a Fissure, and after mulling it I ultied and dove onto him. I died early, but so did Ursa, and ES pulled off blink/echo/refresher/echo outside base which let our hitters mop up. With 4 enemy down for a minute, I told them to go straight for the enemy Ancient or we lose. I’d defend base from top and bottom lane encroaching creeps when I respawned.

My team broke their Ancient long before the enemy respawned yay!

Still, game would’ve ended sooner if Jugg came with us for the many teamfights instead of solo farming till late game.

“Let us rattle some trees, Earthshaker.” – quote uttered early in game when my Treant passed by allied ES

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Sentry Clocking Out for the Day

In a game where the enemy BH and Clinkz were fattened, I plopped a Sentry Ward at the ward spot in our Radiant left jungle. Some time later, a big teamfight occurred. Towards the end, BH and Clinkz came along, were spotted out and killed. And not 20 seconds later, my ward expired.

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Bounce Back at Last

As Lich, it was a ridiculously laggy game for all of us. My ping would fluctuate between 300 and 2000! Anyway I managed to get my Aghs, and in a teamfight I launched it off before dying. It bounced around the enemies which caused one of them to break off and move down, while my Chain Frost followed him and started bouncing off a creep wave instead. It killed them off while the fight continued between the heroes up of them, and several seconds later it killed the last creep which was just in range to bounce to the upper fight and lasthit a retreating enemy! Lol.

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It Never Hurts to Help!

As Undying, we just completed a successful teamfight at top Dire jungle. As we were backing off, I Soul Ripped my ally to heal him. In that same second, the enemy Invoker’s Sunstrike landed just in front of me! If I hadn’t stopped walking forward because of the Soul Rip cast, I’d probably have died.

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More Spirit Breaker Lols

As Spirit Breaker (picked cos I was tired of playing support position 5 for failing carries and no-teamwork, wander off instead of stick to teamgank, solo junglers), I charged from top to bottom lane to initiate a surprise gank. Picking off an enemy, the remaining Templar Assassin hid in her invisibility with one of my Urn DoT on her. So I lined myself up where she had hidden with a ranged creep, charged and pwned her with the AoE knockback Greater Bash!

Meanwhile in that game, fattened Alchemist who had been solo mid then basically free farming while we caused our roaming havoc self-stunned the first two Unstable Concoctions (that I saw). First one was being revved up to stun an enemy when Skywrath appeared out of the Radiant base high ground and silenced him, causing him to be unable to launch the mix and leading to his 5-second self stun and subsequent gank to death. Second time was being shaken but the enemies died before he could launch lol. I noted that it was twice now.

Now in this same game, I died twice where Radiant got the last hit. Both times I joked to report Radiant for KS. And so unfairly, at the last fight where the enemy was desperately holding on to survival against our megacreeps, I had whacked Skywrath to death and was whacking Pudge. I died, and a while later a half-injured Pudge fell to the army of creeps. But I got the kill credit, and my empty urn got 2 charges while dead!

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Asking For It

So we were wrecking all the way into the enemy base, and our Phantom Assassin and Ember Spirit were chopping up enemies from the space and control we had provided.

But what’s this? Invoker managed to run into the fountain and escape? Cue taunt by enemy Lina… Followed immediately by Ember killing Invoker in the fountain:

And again when he respawned:

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Ringside Interference

Me, Axe and LC had just flattened one of the enemy and were chasing down a low health Mirana (mid and roam, probably the most skilled of the enemy team). She leapt, but as Void I was ready to Time Walk after her… When the centaur in the large camp we trespassed on stomped because three heroes had entered his radius, stunning us while Mirana got away!

By the way it was a complete stomp despite my team being 4 melee + 1 ranged carries (Axe, LC, Void, PA, SF) with no real stun, versus their more rounded lineup with plenty of CC (Mirana, Jugg, Viper, Drow, Windy). Axe did buy the courier when no one else did, and I upgraded it later and bought two rounds of wards.

Then again, Jugg being 0-2-2 for most of the game surely didn’t help their cause… Plus he scolded another one of his teammates for being a noob, which I pointed out “Jugg 0-2-2 called you noob” lol, he responded at least he tried to contribute. I resisted the comeback of him contributing basically zilch.

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Sucks to Suck

As Dark Seer, we just won a small skirmish and our Naga Siren was trying to add enemy Abaddon to the killcount. I was low on HP and mana, but as a hard support stuck around to try and help her. With my only offense being Vacuum off cooldown, I cast it on the low-HP Abaddon… Which pulled him nearer to me and popped his Aphotic Shield, killing me -_-

The rest of the game went pretty well though, with several allied AntiMage with Ion Shell chasing and blinking down lone enemies, my Greaves+Pipe+Ion making teamfights easier, a few times Naga Siren’s ult sleeping enemies which made my combo land perfectly (no damage but sets up illusions), the enemy Bristleback’s Nasal Goo useless against my Surge (the goo stretching insanely long lengths), and Wall+Vacuum combos including once just inside Radiant bottomright jungle netting me a Skadi’d Medusa to follow the real Medusa down and participate in a teamfight inside Roshan’s lair (which Roshan himself was not present for).

Another game, I had a good run with a farmed Sven and a PA to Ion Shell and Surge as they chased down enemies. I got a perfect 4-enemy Vacuum+Wall late game teamfight at the topleft Dire jungle, and a Vacuum grouping up the enemy for Sven to cleave at Radiant bottomright jungle. Due to Sven’s propensity to go farm SOME MORE instead of push, the game stretch to past 50 minutes and I had Greaves, Crimson Guard and Shiva’s for the 5 rightclicking enemy lineup. Sven’s stretching it out almost cost us the game though, as our Tinker DC’ed and we were wiped around the spot of the former Tier 1 Dire tower.

The most satisfying feeling of all, however, is when the wall and its illusions actually deal the killing blow!

Behold an amazing game where this happened 3 times!

First, my Vacuum+Wall combo had just been used in a teamfight when I was killed:

The enemy Lion was being wailed upon and managed to dodge our Slark’s Pounce:

But here comes my illusion of the BH… 1 hit:

And 2 hits, dead Lion:

Second, Templar Assassin jumped me behind my Tier 2 tower. As you can see I barely got off the combo before dying:

With still respectable health she started TPing out, but the mass of creeps knocked down her bar faster than expected:

And my illusion of her got the last hit:

Third, poor Lion again at low health just walks over my Wall and dies.

People always underestimate the damage that Wall and the illusions can dish out (I used too as well, until the reaction to landing the combo in tournaments made me reconsider and realize that the illusion damage dealt % is quite respectable AND scales with the farmedness of the copied enemy!)

Anyway, after Lion died I had a nice 3 illusions still around to chip at the tower:

Also in a separate game, the enemy was running with a lot of Shadow Blades. In one case Slardar had skirmished with us and then went invisible to try and skitter off (again), but I aimed a Vacuum over the area he was running towards and popped it… a second later, his corpse appeared at the focal centre lol. (High level Vac has a huge AoE!)

And in another, my early-game single value point in Vacuum came in handy when a slippery enemy Tinker was being chased down by our carry. Once more he started to TP out and looked like he might make it… Until I made it just in time for a level 1 Vacuum to interrupt his channeling!

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U-turn Concussion

As Skywrath, my Radiant team were ganking near the bottom Tier 1 tower and a low health enemy was trying to escape upwards to his own Tier 1. Concussive Shot just came off cooldown, so I let loose close to the max distance… When allied Pudge launched a Hook that grabbed the enemy and pulled him down before my shot could land, causing the bolt to change direction in an almost U-turn and finally strike for the kill.

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Smoked Cheese

Party as 5 in lobby, it was discussed and agreed to go for a cheese push strat. Sven, Leshrac, Enigma, Necrophos, and me as Nature’s Prophet. Nonstop tower push and teamfight, with me off to split rat now and then and porting in to pick off a fleeing weakened enemy.

Sadly my courier snipe attempt failed, as the enemy must have noticed me breaking off to port, so they recalled courier and kept it there until it could fly.

But despite my lack of treants until level 2, our taking each tower one by one – and my team getting some kills – meant that we won the game despite being down 40-69 kills.

The lol part was at the end our leader Sven got us to smoke up in our jungle, then run all the way to the little clump of trees at their rightdown base – saying “skip” to mean skip the creep wave that spawned. While the enemy team were pushing back the megacreep wave at the left side of their Dire base, we charged direct for the less than half HP Ancient – me with a set of treants just before smoke, and another set summoned next to the Ancient with Sprout setup. The Ancient died before the enemy even reached us.

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Axe-cellent

Using Axe, I was running to a teamfight when I spotted the enemy courier fly past. I took the opportunity to wait for it on the return journey, hit it once and immediately blinked further down its path to give it a second whack for the kill!

And manfighting a tanky enemy, I was almost dead but decided to hold on to the bitter end so my allies could get the kill after I passed on. Just then my ally Terrorblade swapped his HP with mine, allowing me to finish the job and not die!

As Axe creep-cutting the enemy safelane wave, the enemy courier just happened to be running past. So I gave chase hoping to get in the 2 whacks needed to kill it. Surprise, the creeps attacking me caused me to spin and pure damage the courier dead instantly!

Enigma was sieging the mid tier 1 tower with his babies. With Blink Dagger ready, I jumped and called him… But the call wore off and he managed to Black Hole before I could finish him. Sadly his army attacking me triggered more spins (Counter Helix triggers while stunned heh heh) and Enigma died. Then his ally Riki who came to join in realized he was dying too, and ran away – but got 2 tower shots follow him and died too, credit for kill to me!

This one was a Bot match… But jumping on an enemy Dazzle with Blademail active, the Bot managed to survive through the Call and cast Shadow Wave… Which healed himself and also the creeps also hitting me, converted all the heal to damage to me, and triggered the Blademail reflect which was still active – killing Dazzle instantly.

Creep cutting again but this time instead pulling them all the way to the jungle camps, letting them aggro with the jungle creeps while I hang around for last hit pickoffs… Or just letting them all hit me for very quick spins to clear them all. During the former type, enemy Juggernaut decided to context by running at me with Blade Fury. I returned rightclicks… Which caused all the creeps to focus me, releasing tons of spins which pure damaged thru the Fury and brought Jugg down low enough and fast enough that by the time he realized and tried to run, one last hit from me killed him. And again when he tried to contest a second time!

A helpful ally pinged out a Haste rune and waited for me to take it. I proceeded to run all the way from the top rune to the bottom Radiant jungle where Sniper was farming a creep wave. I ran past the mid lane creep sparring, so he must have seen me coming and started running home. Way too late, I intersected him near his Tier 2 tower, ran right up to him without bothering to blink, call and culled easily!

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You Became a Mortred Sandwich!

My brother as Dire Naix went into the Radiant jungle before the rune spawn. When the enemy PA tried to run up a ramp from the river to the jungle, he stood at the top – unseen due to the high ground – which caused PA to be unable to path past. She went back down to the river but the Dire Axe was coming, so she unfortunately tried going up the ramp again… And got trapped between Axe and Naix who then slowly rightclicked her down until she died. Lol!

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Wyvern Wonderland

As Winter Wyvern, a newly purchased Shadow Amulet saved my life at a teamfight by our Dire bottom Tier 1 tower with around 170hp to go. The heat was off me long enough for the fight to progress further down and I could safely spam spells from a distance.

Later, while we were pushing bottom lane, our Antimage was solo dueling the enemy Enigma above the Radiant top Tier 2 tower. It looked dangerous and I TP’ed to the top Tier 1 Dire tower and made my way over ASAP. Antimage started losing when Enigma used Black Hole, and the enemy Shadow Demon TP’ed in… I made it just in time to Cold Embrace Antimage at 53hp and a 1-stack Shadow Poison was popped just after. It wasn’t over yet, as they kept on after him and I had to Shadow Amulet him, making him invisible for a second or so until his Blink refreshed and he made it out. He thanked me as Meepo TP’ed in and I died.

My contribution to the rest of the match consisted of waiting for the Meepo gang to show up during teamfights, then Winter’s Curse-ing one of them for a self-smacking… Usually needing a Splinter Blast and maybe one or two Artic Burn-enhanced autoattacks to take down.

I tried it solo once in the river near toplane, Meepo killed me off with some HP left… But luckily Antimage ran over, Blinked in and Mana Voided the nearly dead Meepo lol!

By the end of the game, Meepo questioned what my problem was (or along those lines) :p

I had picked Wyvern in response to Meepo’s pick, funnily enough my ally had randomed Meepo then rerolled earlier!

The previous round my Wyvern went up againt an enemy Meepo, I failed as the enemy Phantom Assassin would jump me and instakill me at the start of fights.

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Disney’s Frozen + Coco

As Crystal Maiden, my ally Wraith King bought Aghanims which I questioned.

But in the later part of the game, our team engaged the enemy at the middle of the map. WK waded in and I ran up to enemy Centaur and started my ult + Glimmer Cape self, but Centaur popped Blademail as enemy LC started BoT teleport onto a creep next to me. My HP lost chunks within seconds.

But surprise to me (and likely the enemy too!), I died but continued channeling my ult as a wraith! As we all realized what was happening, WK died just then, his Talent choice causing Wraithfire Blasts to fan out and hit every enemy – stunning and then further slowing Centaur and LC still in the radius of my ult.

They died, as did WK’s first focused target. I even managed to stay in the mortal realm (well, as a ghost) long enough to run up to a fourth enemy my team was chasing and let loose both my normal spells before the wraithform expired.

With 4 dead, my surviving team had an opening to march into Dire base and smash towers and rax.

Also, a bit later I got my BKB. At the next fight at top, I actually managed my intended combo of BKB, ult and Glimmer – but a second later, enemy Warlock dropped his ult on me which pierces spell immunity -_-

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Undying Sense is Decaying!

As Undying, my game sense suddenly made me realize that the enemy Dire team who had disappeared off the map might be doing Roshan.

Hurrying to the pit, I saw some enemies off to Dire highground to the right of the pit. So I used Decay into the fog around Roshan to confirm whether anyone was inside the pit, and I was rewarded with some Strength stacks.

So I dropped a Tombstone outside the pit at the side of a wall, and our team moved in – leading to a hugely won fight, Roshan and aegis, and the game-ending push.

By the way, in this game our Antimage somehow managed to go 7/7/20 with a build like this:

Which is why I all chatted about it.

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Smoking Kills, Thrice

As Skywrath, I had been splitting support item duties with CM. So I bought three smokes and pinged for smokegank.

What happened is a smoke with three allies, roam around, got a single gank. Then since two allies still were nearby and not busy (i.e. not jungling which would waste any smokes), I immediately smoked again, roamed, got another single gank. And since the two allies were still next to me, one more smoke, roam and single gank.

Got stuck on pos 5 hard support cos no one else would do it, despite me firstpicking when nobody would pick.

And due to the headphones not working properly at cybercafe, unable to hear the activation of Snowball while looking further ahead at my target as I run up to him.

Stil, managed to Ball save SF twice from enemy LC Duel – once keeping him out of the sparring and then stunning LC long enough to barely survive the Duel and then run away, and once actually killing LC with help from Walrus Punch and ending up with SF winning 18 Duel damage.

Also, one save from a Duel was after I died – SF was running away and got Dueled, with no backup… Yet somehow survived and even ran away afterwards. I asked how, and he said it was my frost rune – I had made it follow SF shortly earlier, I forgot I had done so when the teamfight happened!

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One Curse and They Die

Our theoretically superior teamfight was not being utilized due to Luna’s insistence on endless farming or split pushing away from our team. As a result, we as Radiant were on the back foot from midgame onwards, as evidenced by the graph:

What happened? I even called “ggwp at last” just before the last swing to green on the graph. Despite several attempts at highground that were repelled, the opponents maintained the lead… Until right before the end, when we fought just below the middle of the midlane at around the 36th minute though (out of total match time 37:20).

Throughout the game, the enemy would be spread out – making it hard for my Winter Wyvern to get a good Winter’s Curse off. Instead, I’d end up using it on an enemy carry who BKB’ed, in order to waste the duration and disengage.

At this last fight however, I again used Winter’s Curse to lockdown the enemy BKB’ed carry – this time it was SF. But inadvertantly and unplanned, the enemy DK in dragonform was within Curse range and started hitting SF! SF’s health dropped to almost dead during the Curse’s duration, and that gave us the tiny opening to teamwipe the enemy for the loss of only our KotL.

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Chargey Pause

Allied Luna got an invis rune wth ult ready, so she sat in front of the mid Tier 1 tower where the enemy SF was farming. I Charged him with SB and as the creeps were whittled down, Luna activated her ult and…

GAME PAUSED by someone due to someone else disconnecting. Luna was in midcast, while I was a fraction away from crashing into SF… Who had a Blink Dagger ready to go!

First game using Dark Willow (after some bot practice games, basic decency for your team!). My role was to lockdown on offense and help my carries escape on defence.

We got megas, but as with most games the carries stuck around afterwards to throw away their lives.

Enemy team marched into our base… Knocking on Tier 4s… Beating down our team despite my best attempts at delaying, then chasing me through Shadow Realm and Forcestaff that got me to the edge of my fountain when someone Atos’d me in place – popping my Aeon Disk which gave me 2 seconds to get into the fountain, but Naix Open Wounds’d me and killed me regardless.

Tier 4s still up, so that might just buy enough time for anyone on my team to respawn…

Terrorblade furiously allchatting his disappointment at Magnus for not Empowering him…

As we were pushing the Dire’s mid Tier 2 tower, enemy Jugg ran up to start hitting my Dark Willow, so I popped Shadow Realm to survive, so he popped Blade Fury to kill me with the AoE damage, so I dropped Bramble Maze behind the Tier 2 tower before I inevitably died.

When Blade Fury ended, Jugg ran back over the Brambles and got stuck – just as a Dire creep wave appeared. So our Earthshaker casually walked up to Jugg as the creeps arrived and had a jolly good Echo Slam that took off almost all Jugg’s HP!

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Woods of Terror

As Dark Willow, enemy Dire QOP had narrowly escaped with low HP and was trying to juke from Dire Ancients plateu and thru the trees next to the Tier 1 Dire tower, with our carry trying to get her. I threw a blind Terrorize that just clipped QOP in the trees, causing her to run back to Dire base unable to blink, and our carry finished her off.

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Troller’s Curse

As Winter Wyvern, I was making my way from mid to bottom lane where a fight was about to brew, when I spotted a Rune in the river. As I moved to take it, the enemy QoP came down the river from mid! I quickly Winter’s Cursed her in order to make time for me to escape. Just then, the enemy Faceless Void Time Walked from out of nowhere right onto the cursed QoP and ended up smacking her to death lol!

Later in the game, we were losing and the enemy had broken into our Radiant base. Enemy Necrophos was alone hitting buildings at the left side of the base, and I went to harass him a bit. With none of his allies nearby, I didn’t have an opening to usemy ultimate. But when I retreated back to fountain, Nec who was a bit injured moved to rejoin his team at the middle. So I turned, Force Staffed myself forward, and Winter’s Cursed him in the middle of his team for a troll pickoff.

Later still, I was perusing the Secret Shop at Radiant when Necrophos showed up. He started to chase, and unfortunately for him an ally showed up – so of course I ulted him and he died to it again.

Summary of Me

scottthongblog[at]yahoo[dot]com

Seeking truth, hating lies.

Oh my labels!

Free thinking, but not a Free Thinker.
A Christian and a scientist, but not a Christian Scientist.
Believing in a universal church, but not a Catholic.
Trying to be a saint in these latter days, but not a Latter Day Saint.
A witness for Jehovah, but not a Jehovah's Witness.
Sumitted to God, but not a Muslim.
Seeking knowledge, but not a Gnostic.
Rational in thinking, but not a Rationalist.
Upholding humanity, but not a Humanist.
A supporter of liberation, but not a Liberal.
A supporter of democracy, but not a Democrat.
Acknowledging the importance of social values, but not a Socialist.
Seeking and valuing truth, but not a Truther.